Tuesday, 26 November 2013

Hello and welcome to another Ten Minute Tuesday. Hop over to Vicki's to see what this is all about. Its about taking wee ten minute bursts of creativity when you don't have a huge slice of time and seeing what you come up with

This week I have this wee art journal background. I got a glue gun recently as I have been dying to try out a technique I saw demonstrated by Contadina K on Your Tube. My first attempt isn't as good as hers but I'm quite pleased with it.

Basically you make trails of glue over your paper and allow to dry, sponge over some gesso and then
spray some inks on to your background. I just love the texture you get. I have no idea what I will use this page for yet but it was fun practising.

I also made this flower shape out of the glue gun. Its basic but it was my first attempt. I'm going to use this as a stencil to put on my page and then mist some inks around it to see what effect I get.

Sunday, 24 November 2013

Hi there. Brrr! it's been a horrible dull, damp and freezing week here in my corner of Scotland and that has meant my energy levels have been severely sapped and Im taking to my nice cosy bed with a hot water bottle and a dvd or book early doors most evenings. I hate the dark cold winter months with a passion and it seems the older I get the worse I feel about them. This has meant that I am lagging more and more behind with my Attitude of Gratitude journal pages. I am determined to plod along and catch up but I guess it will be well into December before I complete this month long challenge.

If you want to know what this challenge is about then hop over to Bernice's blog here and have a look. The prompts are fab and I'm really enjoying myself challenging myself to attempt as many of the techniques as I can without having to actually buy any new stash. Its amazing what you can do with what you already own!!

So here's my pages for Days 8 to 14

Day 8 - Fun. I scraped some modelling paste through a stencil (thank you Donna for the loan of this one - I love it) then when it was dry sprayed with Dylusions inks, stamped a Kate Crane stamp and doodled and journalled round the page

Day 9 - Generosity. For this one I spread on gesso quite thickly all over the page tehn drew some swirls with the end of a paintbrush. Once dry, I sprayed with Dylusions inks (I love how the gesso gives them a softer look) and I cut out and stuck down a border and an image from Crowabout Studio B and did my journaling around the swirls.

Day 10 - Ideas. I scraped modelling paste through a tando cogs mask in two of the corners and again sprayed on Dylusions Ink. I thought the wee guy called Hunk from Stampotique was perfect to finish off the page as his rather large head looks like it is full of ideas lol. I cut out some text paper and doodled the places I go to for ideas on and did some journaling around the sides.

Day 11 - Home. I covered the page in gesso again and heated it with a heat gun till it bubbled up, then sprayed with the inks again. I doodled the houses on text paper, added roofs from corrugated card and finished if off with stamping the word home and finishing the phrase with chit chat words and a corrugated heart. I journalled around the houses and finished the page off with a doodled border.

Day 12 - Joy. I tried the Vaseline resist technique for this page by scraping some Vaseline through a stencil then carefully painting over the top with acrylic paint. Let the paint dry naturally then wipe away the paint from where the Vaseline was to reveal the card underneath. Th hot air balloon stamps is an Indigo Blu one

Day 13 - Knowledge. For this one I used the glue stick resist technique. I rubbed a glue stick over my stencil, let it dry a bit then sprayed on inks and wiped off where the glue was. I stamped on an Indigo Blu compass stamp and journalled around it and doodled some flowers. I dont really like this page but I will stick with it.

and finally for now

Day 14 - Life

I used a wax crayon resist for this one. I doodled the border and the swirls with a white wax crayon then washed over the page with watercolour paint. I journalled in the swirls.

So here we are at Day 24 so just the ten days behind now although I do have some backgrounds started which I am working on this afternoon

Tuesday, 19 November 2013

Hi there. Today I have a work in progress to show you for my Ten Minute Tuesday post. Hop on over to Vicki's and see what its all about and join in with us.

While I was away for my crafting week with the girls at Lochhouse, Dee was showing us her recycled art journal made from a cereal packet using a tutorial by Jenniebellie. I instantly wanted to make one so when we popped into the Tesco's in Dumfries I had to purchase a box of cereal. I can report that as we weren't going to eat the cereal its possible to purchase a suitable box of Tesco own brand cereal for 31p!!! Not bad for a journal cover eh!! I also got a roll of brown wrapping paper to cover the box with.

I managed to create my covers in various ten minute bursts between doing other projects.

You need to open up the cereal box. Glue all the flappy bits to the covers for strength and cover the whole thing in pva glue. Cut your brown paper bigger all round and place on top of the gluey covers and scrunch it up a bit to give some texture. This then needs to dry for a fairly long time while youa re getting on with something else. I left mine overnight.

Next step was to paint the covers - I choose dark turquoise. It took two coats to cover the brown paper. I then glued two pieces of corrugated card to the inside front and back covers for strength. We recycled an amazon box from martins recycling pile for this purpose. I stripped back the card to reveal the corrugated bits before glueing them in.

The final stage was to rub some treasure gold over the raised bits of the painted brown paper which really highlighted it well.

I have all the signatures folded ready to be sewn in but I have ordered some waxed linen thread from Vicki at A Sprinkle of Imagination as I thought that would have been stronger than the embroidery thread I usually use.

Once I have sewn the signatures in I will blog the finished book. I love it already and can see me making another one in the not too distant future.

I had to take it outside to photograph on the window sill as the light has been so bad recently and look little Maisie Moo just had to get it on the action!!

Thursday, 14 November 2013

I have been joining in this month with An Attitude of Gratitude over on Bernice's blog here. Although I am running a little behind I am determined to keep going and will be playing catch up at my crop on Saturday.

Bernice is posting prompts, quotes and bible verses each date on a theme and a new technique to try every couple of days.

I am using the quotes and the verses as inspiration for the journaling on my page and Im trying to follow the suggested techniques as far as I have the necessary stash to do them with, I am completing this project using stash I have and am not buying a single new item

Here's a round up of my first weeks pages. The techniques for Days 1 to 17 was to use distress products and as I only have distress ink pads I had to dig deep but did manage to try seven different techniques. It just served to remind me how versatile the distress ink pads are.

The one common denominator in all my pages is to stamp the word for each day using the same set of alphabet stamps.

I have backgrounds done for Days 8 to 11 and am hoping to work on these tonight.

Tuesday, 12 November 2013

Hello there. I have missed out on posting for the last couple of Tuesdays as life has been a bit hectic recently.

I am taking part in An Attitude of Gratitude this month and will be blogging a full round up of my pages so far before the weekend but for the moment here's a few of the backgrounds I have prepped ready using Bernice's prompt to have texture on your page.

For two of the backgrounds I spread texture paste through a stencil, allowed to dry and sprayed with dylusions inks and for the pink one I spread gesso on thickly and heated and bubbled it up with my heat gun before spraying on dylusions inks in pinks, yellows and reds, I love the more muted shades the gesso gave them. For the final one I spread on gesso, again quite thickly and drew swirls into it with the other end of a paintbrush, let it dry and sprayed with the dylusions inks. Not too bad for a couple of ten minute sessions. Just need to get the pages finished and then I will be on track with this month long project.

Hop over to Vicki's blog if you want to join in with Ten Minute Tuesday and you can find Bernice's blog here if you want to join in with An Attitude of Gratitude.

Wednesday, 6 November 2013

Well round one of the Secret Swappers art journal circle journal has been completed and Chrissies cj is now winging its way to Heidi.

Chrissie's theme was funky, kooky, weird, stampotiquey and as I don't have a lot of stampotique stamps (yet) I was a bit puzzled at first as what to do.

I then spotted some fab downloads from Deviant Art. The ones I liked were Mermaid Tales by Nancy Baumillar and one of the images was an octopus body. I searched on google and pinterest for octopus type quotes and found one which made me laugh and summed up the way I had been feeling recently. "Some days I wish I was an octopus so I could slap eight people at once" I knew Chrissie wouldn't be offended by this so my page was born

I started with some pink and turquoise paint over a coat of gesso and then did some stencilling with white paint and added a few strips of paper and some rocks from the downloaded papers which I doodled some white dots on./ I attached the octopus body with gel matte medium and added one of thefaces with a crown to finish her off. Some of the fish from the set were dotted round the page. I love the pink spotty ones.

Some black lines of paint and circles with oil pastels and the words and it was finished, I just hope Chrissie likes it when she gets it back.

Round 2 is commencing now and Jane's lovely cj arrived yesterday. Its on the theme of Flight and I think I might just have an idea for her page. Watch this space.

Sunday, 3 November 2013

hello everyone I just realised that there were still a couple of pages com my art journal I did on my recent crafty break with friends I hadn't shown you.

I'm still very much a novice at this art journaling but I am just loving the whole learning process.

I think the main thing I have learned so far is to.keep layering until you are happy with the effect you have.
This dream page started with some green and turquoise acrylic paints, I then kept adding some stamping using some script and bubble stamps till I was happy with the effect. I cut the heart and the.circles from text paper and finger painted a layer of pearlescent pink paint on, the paint is quite translucent so you can still see the text. I added a few strips of.washi tape, some rub ons and stamped the dream sentiment and butterfly stamps on white tissue paperr using stazon inks. you then tear
round the tissue close to the stamping and apply it to your page using gel medium. you can't then see the tissue paper so it looks like you stamped directly on the page.

I finished it off by scribbling round the circles with pearlescent pink acyrylic ink and letting it dribble down the page. I love the effect so thank you Dee for letting me use yours. A bottle of this is on my wish list now but probably in turquoise, no surprise there then.

I am Mum to two young adults. I live in East Kilbride, Scotland I enjoy art journalling, mixed media and altering things, scrap booking and making mini books. I run the EK Crop & Craft which is a very successful and friendly crop in East Kilbride welcoming all kinds of crafters.
My favourite place to be though is Beadnell in Northumberland where my parents have a caravan. I just love the complete peace and rugged beauty of the place. I really am a beside the sea kind of girl and would love to retire some day to a cottage by the sea